“Yes.” The waiting in between questions is unbearable. “Constance, is it true?”
She lowers her head. “I can explain.”
My outrage is ferocious, instincts compelling me to be on the offensive. Constance is one of my closest friends, but my loyalty to Ava in this moment is potent.
“How could you? With Preston!”
Having an affair with a random man would be immoral enough, but he and Constance are the opposite of each other. She’s all woo-woo and air and mutable. He’s muscle and earth and fixed. The two of them never made sense as friends, let alone as lovers, Ava being the only binding force between them.
“I didn’t plan for this,” she says. “He didn’t either. It just happened.”
“You don’tjust happento sleep with your best friend’s husband.”
“Don’t say it like that.” She looks down, rubbing two fingers along her brow. “It sounds dirty, wrong.”
“That’s exactly what it is!”
I realize I’m yelling. I wanted to keep my voice down, try tode-escalate this situation, but I lack self-control. A protective, violent energy surges through me, similar to what I felt on the night I confronted Oliver in Marmee’s closet.
“Preston signed up for some spirituality sessions after his contract ended. He’s been struggling.”
I know he has. Like so many athletes after retirement, he’s floundered, unable to find his purpose, a series of new industry failures only compounding his sense of inadequacy. I’ve heard all this before from Ava. His wife.
“We became closer. He showed me a side to him I’ve never seen before,” she says. “One thing led to another.”
I clench my fists. “How could you do this to Ava?”
“You have to believe me, both of us feel awful about what we’ve done.”
“Then why keep doing it?” I ask.
“We tried calling things off,” she says, looking down at her growing stomach, “then this happened.”
The thought already existed in my brain, but I didn’t want it to be true. It feels like a bullet has ripped through me, tearing at my flesh and insides one layer at a time.
“Is Preston the father?”
Tears glimmer in her eyes. She nods.
Disgust, sour and bitter, lodges in my throat, burning. This revelation will destroy Ava.
“You said you wanted to tackle motherhood on your own. That you weren’t going to wait around for a man.”
“I meant everything I said. I did. I’d started looking into IUI long before things got serious with Preston. I’d already committed to my decision, scheduled the insemination,” she says, looking at her stomach. “This happened on its own.”
As if pregnancy is some magic trick, a rabbit being pulled out of a black hat. She made deliberate decisions leading up to conception. Getting involved with Preston. Sleeping with him, over and over again. The decision to betray Ava and risk her friendship with Marlowe once theaffair was found out. Choosing to go through a pregnancy knowing how many lives could be ruined as a result.
Ava has tried to become pregnant and failed. To know that Preston and Constance were able to conceive this easily—
Ava exits the bedroom. When she sees Constance standing in the hallway, in the flesh, she inhales deeply, as though she’s about to faint.
Constance mirrors her reaction, her body falling forward, collapsing into itself as she cries, “Ava, please let me explain.”
“Is it true?”
Ava’s composure surprises me. Gone is the broken woman from minutes ago, her emotions replaced with seething disdain.
Constance can’t bring herself to answer. Her mouth opens and closes, searching. “We never meant to hurt you.”
